On 5 March 2026, the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, in partnership with the Thulani Maseko Foundation, Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists, and Amnesty International, hosted the 3rd Annual Thulani Maseko Memorial Lecture. The event fell on what would have been Thulani Maseko's 56th birthday, three years after his brutal assassination on 21 January 2023. The theme of this year’s lecture was ‘The role of solidarity in advancing justice and accountability for the persecution of human rights defenders in Eswatini’.
Three years on, there is still no justice and no accountability for the killing of Thulani Maseko, human rights lawyer, constitutional reform advocate, and fearless defender of democracy in Eswatini. His killers remain at large. The event was opened by Ms Bonolo Makgale, Programme Manager of the Democracy and Civic Engagement Unit at the Centre for Human Rights, who set the tone with a reminder that memory is not passive. "To remember Thulani is not merely to mourn him," she said. "It is to defy the forces that believed his death would end his work. Memory, in this sense, is resistance and defiance and it is most powerful when it is collective." She grounded the gathering in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, noting that while it places a clear obligation on states to protect defenders from violence and retaliation, the state had failed Maseko catastrophically.
In her opening remarks, Professor Nkatha Murungi, Assistant Director of the Centre for Human Rights, situated Maseko's legacy within a global moment of democratic backsliding. She noted the heightened relevance of the push for democracy and promotion of human rights, as Maseko did, in an increasingly hostile context in Eswatini and beyond. She also noted that Maseko’s devotion to the fight for democracy from a young age stands as a guiding light to the emerging ‘Gen-Z’ youth movement driving the calls for democratic and accountable governance across the African continent. Prof. Murungi highlighted the critical role of universities and institutions of higher learning as partners with human rights defenders by equipping, connecting, amplifying and supporting them in the pursuit of the human rights and democratisation cause. She noted the Centre’s commitment to continue Maseko’s life mission by contributing to pro-democracy efforts in Eswatini and the region more broadly.
The keynote address, titled Thulani's Legacy: Solidarity as Strategy, Memory as Resistance, was delivered by Mark Heywood, a lifelong human rights and social justice activist. Drawing on a personal interview he had conducted with Maseko in September 2022, just four months before Maseko's assassination, Heywood described Maseko as a moral voice and pioneer whose loss had weakened the struggle for democracy in Eswatini. Heywood challenged the gathering to recognise that Maseko’s murder was not an isolated incident, but rather a symptom of a broader 'change of age': a systemic and coordinated assault on the foundations of democratic life. In the words of Achille Mbembe, murder has ceased to be an exception and has become policy. This is evident in the killing of journalists and activists in Mozambique, the attack on Lovemore Madhuku in Zimbabwe, the assassination of 26 Abahlali baseMjondolo community leaders in South Africa, and the ongoing violence against human rights defenders in Iran, Gaza and the West Bank. Heywood was unflinching in his criticism of the collective failure to protect individuals facing corrupt regimes alone. Mark recalled an article he wrote 3 days after Maseko's murder, where he argued that we all had killed Thulani, not with a gun, but by leaving brave individuals to confront corrupt regimes alone; by launching solidarity campaigns that dissolved the moment the news cycle moved on; and by celebrating our heroes without building the structures that would protect them.
He warned that the human rights movement is losing because it has confused performance with power. He called for solidarity to evolve from reactive outrage into a permanent infrastructure of counter-power that is community-rooted, sustained, anticipatory and costly enough for those in power to notice. He drew on historical examples such as the 1,408-day Anti-Apartheid Movement picket outside South Africa House in London and the Dunnes Stores workers’ strike in Dublin as models of the kind of costly, relentless and embodied solidarity capable of imposing real consequences on repressive regimes. He demanded an independent investigation into Maseko’s murder, prosecution of the perpetrators, release of political prisoners and the courageous decision to hold a future lecture in Eswatini itself.
The key note address was followed by a panel discussion, moderated by Dr Michelle Maziwisa, Programme Manager of the HRDA, Centre for Human Rights, which brought together voices from law, civil society, and human rights institutions to interrogate what solidarity means in practice and what it demands. Panellists examined how courts, prosecutors, and police in Eswatini have been systematically weaponised against the very people and institutions they were designed to protect, and called for sustained strategic litigation and coordinated solidarity across the southern African legal profession. The discussion challenged the tendency to treat solidarity as symbolic, arguing instead that it must become an architecture built on three mutually reinforcing pillars: diplomatic infrastructure, including coordinated UN engagement and targeted sanctions; financial infrastructure rooted in decolonised, locally-led funding models; and digital infrastructure capable of protecting and connecting the next generation of defenders. Drawing on lived experience of regional advocacy campaigns, panellists argued that solidarity has repeatedly failed not because the will was absent, but because it was not sustained, institutionalised, or sufficiently costly for those in power. Fear, fatigue, and fragmentation were identified as deliberate tools of authoritarian systems and the panel called for solidarity strategies that anticipate repression rather than merely react to it. At the regional institutional level, participants pointed to the need to operationalise the SADC alliance of national human rights institutions as a vehicle for coordinated, durable solidarity that transcends individual crises and countries.
In his message of solidarity, Mr Brian Kagoro, the Open Society Foundation's Managing Director of Programmes and Africa Geo Lead, called for the building of counter-power to hegemonic and violent systems, while simultaneously constructing ecosystems of protection to ensure the continuity of life and struggle. He cautioned against the destructive tendencies of hyper-localisation and emphasised the need for diplomacy that connects the local to broader continental and global alliances. He also highlighted the importance of psychosocial support in sustained resistance and called for deliberate efforts to control digital narratives in the face of misinformation and suppression. Kagoro closed with a message of grounded hope, affirming that freedom has inherent value and that solidarity is a form of care infrastructure that sustains people and movements throughout the long struggle for democracy.
In closing, Mrs Tanele Maseko, Executive Director of the Thulani Maseko Foundation, delivered a resolute address that situated the Foundation's work within the broader struggle for constitutional accountability and democratic governance in Eswatini. Speaking with both personal conviction and strategic clarity, Mrs Maseko reaffirmed the Foundation's commitment to the long-term pursuit of justice, noting that the work of confronting authoritarianism demands a coordinated, principled, and sustained response. She called on all those present to engage autocratic regimes not reactively, but through disciplined, collective action rooted in a shared commitment to the rule of law. Her address underscored that the protection of human rights defenders and the advancement of democratic governance in Eswatini are not causes with an endpoint, but ongoing obligations that require institutional resolve and regional solidarity.
The Centre for Human Rights, the Thulani Maseko Foundation, Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists, and Amnesty International continue to call on the Government of Eswatini to provide a transparent progress report on the investigation into the murder of Thulani Maseko, to speed up the investigation and bring those responsible to justice, to release all political prisoners detained since the June 2021 civil unrest, and to ensure a safe and enabling environment for human rights defenders, lawyers, and journalists to operate freely and without fear.
We call on civil society, legal professionals, diplomatic representatives, and partner institutions across the continent and globally to build a sustained, institutionalised, and transformative infrastructure of solidarity that honours Thulani Maseko's legacy and advances the struggle for democracy, rule of law, and human rights in Eswatini and across Africa.
For more information, please contact:
+27 (0) 12 420 4199
bonolo.makgale@up.ac.za
